


Tell Me You Love Me (come back and haunt me)

by cassiopeiasara



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M, Prompt Fill, Reflective Piece, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 12:11:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11207805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassiopeiasara/pseuds/cassiopeiasara
Summary: Bill wants and wishes for so many things as he nears the end he fears so much.Set during and post Daybreak Pt 3.





	Tell Me You Love Me (come back and haunt me)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lolcat202](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lolcat202/gifts).



> A/N: lolcat asked for a fic based from Coldplay's "The Scientist" lyrics "Tell me you love me, come back and haunt me, oh and I rush to the start." So against my own denial of canon, I wrote this. Not beta'd and written late in the night so all mistakes are mine. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own these characters and I seek no profit. You'll also recognize the last line is not at all mine.

He prays to Gods he doesn’t believe in for just five more minutes. Enough to tell her what these months (and years) have meant. Enough to apologize for letting his grief overshadow precious moments she deserved. Enough to let her sit in their future living room.

In the end, he gets just under two.  _So much life_ , she says.

He knows it means what lies outside the raptor and she whispers it with such relief.  _So much life_  and all he can think of is the one he wanted to share with her. All they could have had, all the life she possessed.

He buries her and barely gets out the words she’d wanted him to recite. She probably thought he’d blown of all her suggestions in his attempts to forget but he couldn’t. (Especially when he found an outline of her plan, one of the few wishes she ever made.)

Tears cloud his vision and his voice quivers with the threat of the sobs that mean to overtake him but he manages to do it exactly how she wanted.

As he lays on the last stone, he pauses to take in the view. He knows she would have loved it and instead of the thought bringing comfort, it just hurts more. It makes him wish for time they never had. He curses a world in which someone like Gauis Baltar lives and she dies. He wants to think he’ll move past the ache. He knows she wants that but it’s inconceivable at the moment.

He sits eventually, describes the view. He forgets for a moment she’s not here. She’s been so quiet these days, it’s not much different. The soft breeze reminds him of her sighs and he can faintly hear her hums. It  _almost_  works.

Except there’s no quip about how he thinks the cabin will be built in three months when he can’t finish a model ship in three years. No uneven breathing or shuffling of papers. He misses the squeeze she gives his forearm. The reassurance she’s listening even if she doesn’t have the strength to speak much. The instance every night that he reads even when she knows she’ll be asleep after one paragraph. He misses her and hates that she’s missing this. The reward for their work. The fruit of the labor she endured just to give her people a firm place to plant their feet.

He wishes for a drink. He wants it more than he can bear but he ran out in his last binge and filled with thoughts of her, it didn’t occur to him to procure more.

The lack of something with the ability to chase away his pain is just another reminder of the nothing that remains with her gone.

* * *

A month later, he’s chopping a tree and it starts to rain. He curses his slow movements to cover his project with the tarp Lee brought on his last visit. He manages it with no time to spare when raindrops become pelts. He ducks under the tarp, just inside where he’ll put the front door.

He thinks of another afternoon under a tent, a sacred text in hand and the realization that there would always be more to Laura Roslin than he’d ever have time to learn.

He wants so much now. More than anything, he wants it all back. If he could go back and start again, there is so much he would do. So much he would say.

“Aren’t you supposed to stick around for unfinished business?” He asks in the direction of her resting place.

Like always, he doesn’t receive an answer. He’d give anything if he could.

As he listens to the rain, he recounts the clearest memories. The feel of her weight rested against him, the quirk of her brow, the playful glint in her eyes. The way her laugh would build especially when she was trying so hard to suppress it. He smiles as he recalls her debate jitters, her playful jokes on the mistake that was New Caprica (the settling of course, not their time, never their time).

He falls asleep to the endless pouring and dreams of their first tentative alliance. The promise of moving forward toward a common goal and an assurance to not interfere with the other party’s role. It gives way quickly to their dance on Colonial Day. The way she slipped gracefully into his arms, still on guard but a small yield, a light loosening of the presidential shield. A glimpse into the Laura he would come to know.

Thunder jolts him awake and he curses reality for taking her away. He settles more into the bones of the cabin he has finished so far. It’s not quite a foundation yet but he’s done enough to get started and maintain temporary shelter. His tools lay out in a mess in the middle.

He wants her ghost to filter in, remind him that if he doesn’t keep track, he’ll lose something. He wants her soft smile in the morning and her sleepy murmurings to lull him to sleep. Just one more I love you, just one more conversation. Just one more piece of her, of them.

The rain stops and the sun comes through again but he can’t possibly continue today, not with the memories so fresh and close. Not with his longing at its peak.

He remembers a joke she made two months ago. Some attempt to cheer him up as the realization of his crippling ship came crashing down.

_I’ll have to come back and haunt you just to get that sour look off your face._

He sighs and wishes she could make good on that threat. He fumbles for a novel and points himself toward her as he begins:

“ _From the moment I opened my eyes, she is in my blood, like cheap wine, bitter and sweet tinged with regret. I’ll never be free of her, nor do I want to be. For she is what I am…_ ”


End file.
